Welcome to RebelStar

Julian Gollop wrote the origional versions of the RebelStar games and together with his brother and one or two others brought them to the spectrum, and Amstrad (Although not the Commadore 64 as Jason Kelly informs me). My brother and I have always been great fans of both RebelStar and Rebelstar II. We played them so much that we could beat the computer without taking damage to any of our units and getting the maximal victory score causing RebelStar II to print garbage as a victory message because it hadn't been considered that you could get such a high score!

I have converted both RebelStar and RebelStar II to run under Java so that anyone can enjoy these clasics. Julian Gollop has very kindly consented to me releasing this Java version of his origional programs.

All you have to do is open the RebelStar.html file and your browser (or Appletviewer) should do all the rest (although to run it in a browser you will need Java 1.2 or later enabled).

Alternatively if you have Java 1.2 or later installed on your computer, chances are that simply clicking on the RebelStar.jar file it should run RebelStar as an aplication. If this doesn't work you could use the command "java -jar RebelStar.jar" to run Rebelstar from the command line (or you could create a batch file or short cut).

A manual for Rebelstar is online at norse.ulver.com/lsquad/manual/rebelstar.html
If the link is broken here's a quick summary:
Rebelstar:
The Raiders want to destroy the ISAAC computer located in the central control room of the Moonbase. You have 80 turns to do this and will win if you destroy the computer however many units you loose. The Opperatives need to defend the computer at all costs and will win if the computer is still intact at the end of 80 turns or all the raiders are killed. The Raiders get re-enforcements a few turns later if they destroy the 3 laser defense computers.
Rebelstar II:
The Raiders need to wipe out an Alien base and get the eggs to a spaceship before it takes off again. The aliens must try to kill as many of the Raiders or stop them getting to their ship on time. Both sides get re-enforcements. The ship will turn up during the game and will leave on turn 26.

Regardless of which game you play there are a few common features:
You are given a number of units depending on the level of the game. Each has their strengths and weaknesses. Each unit has different amounts of Action Points. Each move or task costs a certain amount of Action points.
To move the cursor or unit selected use 'A' to move left, 'D' to move right, 'W' to move up, 'X' to move down and 'Q', 'E', 'Z' and 'C' to move diagonaly. All other options are listed on the right of the screen. In adition to the controls available in the origional game, 'V' turns the sound on and off. '+' increases the volume, and '-' decresaes the volume.

The game defaults to a resolution of 512 by 384 pixels. The minimal resolution allowed is 256 by 192 (the origional spectrum resolution). You can have any height and width of display (specified in the RebelStar.html file) so long as it is greater or equal to the minimum resolution. The program will automatically re-size the screen to best fit the available space. You can even specify a percentage (ie WIDTH=100% HEIGHT=100%) and it will fit your browser screen.
If you're running RebelStar as an aplication you can simply resize it.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I have. If you spot any bugs please let me know. If it encounters a problem, RebelStar should print out an error message with information that will aid me to fix the fault. This information will be printed in the Java Console in a browser or printed in a text window if run from the command line. Sending this information would be invaluable to me. In two cases this info has enabled me find a bug I wouldn't have found any other way.

You can contact me at william@lasersquad.org.uk and my web-site URL is lasersquad.org.uk/RebelStar.html

Special Thanks to Ian McGrath for spotting several bugs (Terrain protection, door key, item handling and Stamina) which thanks to his help I've now fixed.

Thanks to Vinay Gupta who spotted a problem when RebelStar is run on a mac. Again thanks to his help I've now fixed the bug :)

Thanks to Craig Turner for spotting a bug with the hand-to-hand combat, which has now been fixed.

Speaking of bugs, a special thanks to moggie for spotting a bug and when it happened. Have since fixed a bug with computer units being deployed in places that crashed the game.

Thanks to Charlie Roberts who spotted a bug in the line of sight routine that I've been able to fix with bug information he sent me.

Thanks to James Wood who reported a bug in the hand to hand combat system that I've now fixed.

Thanks to Sam Tolworthy who reported a bug, and with the help of the debugging info he suplied, I was able to track down a bug in the routing tables.

If you want to find out what Julian Gollop is up to these days, have a look at www.lasersquadnemesis.com

Enjoy!

William Fraser

6th July 2009
